Is an electronic logbook acceptable in UK?

DennisF

DennisF

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By nature, I prefer electronic over paper for diaries etc. I have constructed an Excel workbook to act as a logboook and maintenance log, but a sailing instructor I know says this would not be acceptable to the UK authorities in the event of a MAIB investigation or indeed a court case. Do any of you know the regulations on this? A lot of my journeys are pottering around local rivers and it would be a nonsense to use a ‘2 page per day’ type logbook for this.
 
DennisF said:
By nature, I prefer electronic over paper for diaries etc. I have constructed an Excel workbook to act as a logboook and maintenance log, but a sailing instructor I know says this would not be acceptable to the UK authorities in the event of a MAIB investigation or indeed a court case. Do any of you know the regulations on this? A lot of my journeys are pottering around local rivers and it would be a nonsense to use a ‘2 page per day’ type logbook for this.
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I'm thinking of doing the same thing. Did you find a logbook template or did you make it up yourself?
 
DennisF said:
By nature, I prefer electronic over paper for diaries etc. I have constructed an Excel workbook to act as a logboook and maintenance log, but a sailing instructor I know says this would not be acceptable to the UK authorities in the event of a MAIB investigation or indeed a court case. Do any of you know the regulations on this? A lot of my journeys are pottering around local rivers and it would be a nonsense to use a ‘2 page per day’ type logbook for this.
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Completely illegal I'm afraid. It has to be on parchment and in copperplate script. Anything less is totally unacceptable. People have been transported to the colonies for less.

I use a spreadsheet for recording miles, maintenance etc. I still use a written logbook if only for the vague benefit of having a last known position in the case of total electronic failure. I've also been playing with OpenCPNs 'VDR' too.

On commercial shipping MAIB seem to be more interested in downloading the contents of the VDR for an investigation, although it does seem very easy for the crew to mess that up before the investigation starts.
 
For non commercial operations one regulation that you must follow is SOLAS 1974 Chapter 5 Safety of Navigation which is applicable to leisure sailors in the Uk and any other country that has 'signed up' to SOLAS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLAS_Convention
https://mcanet.mcga.gov.uk/public/c4/solas/index.html

It does not state that you must have a written log or an electronic log, just that you need to consider all aspects of the voyage with regards to safety, including safe navigation. If you had an incident which had to be investigated then you would need to demonstrate how you considered the safety for that voyage. I do not think that you would need a written or electronic log for the 'pottering round of local rivers' to demonstrate safety and navigation.
 
Is there a legal requirement to have a logbook?

If not (and I didn't think for non-commercial craft there was) then I'd say they can do without when they say yours is illegal!

The concern is presumably that you could edit it retrospectively. While not 100% infallible, one approach might be to save a copy as PDF at periodic intervals. Providing a history of changes over time. A simple macro could so this "onClose" with a date and time stamp. I could come up with ways to hack that if I was wanting to... but you'd be into pretty extreme evidence fabrication! Saving those files to "the cloud" might actually provide an independent audit-able trail of when the PDF was created etc.

MAIB - IMHO will be less likely to say its not legally admissible. They might acknowledge that in their report either explicitly or in an implied fashion, however, in its absence they are likely to ask you what you did and be told based on your reference to your notes aka The Log.

Court - I suspect you'd still be able to table the evidence, it would be the prosecution's job to try and discredit it if they believed it was not reliable. But I'm doubtful that the court would say "contemporaneous notes" could not be submitted as evidence. So it is up to the Prosecution to cast doubt over their reliability just the same as they might by questioning witnesses who say the robber came down the street wearing a green hat while the CCTV shows they came up the street in a red hat. By discrediting that evidence they call into question the rest of the witness information... "Are you sure it was a gun they had and not a banana, if you thought the hat was green and they came down the street?"
 
DennisF said:
By nature, I prefer electronic over paper for diaries etc. I have constructed an Excel workbook to act as a logboook and maintenance log, but a sailing instructor I know says this would not be acceptable to the UK authorities in the event of a MAIB investigation or indeed a court case. Do any of you know the regulations on this? A lot of my journeys are pottering around local rivers and it would be a nonsense to use a ‘2 page per day’ type logbook for this.
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http://www.rya.org.uk/knowledge-advice/regulations/pleasure-craft/Pages/keeping-a-log.aspx
 
To the best of my knowledge and as per the above, it is not a legal requirement to maintain a Log of a UK recreational vessel's movements. However, a number of agencies may take an interest in the event of the vessel/crew coming to their attention..... including your insurer.

Should you make it your normal practice to use such means, and should records of past passages be routinely kept, I rather imagine all such agencies' 'inspectors' would be willing to take that as your normal practice, and reliable. That doesn't mean every last detail needs to be recorded in forensic detail, and your own habitual abbreviations and acronyms should suffice - provided they are explicable.

I tend to use some of the abbreviations I learned while keeping a flying navigational log ( mandatory ), but these days I also record, by camera, the condition of my mooring lines before leaving the boat. These pics get stored, but not for MAIB purposes....
 
Thanks all. Sounds like my electronic log will be fine, especially as it is in the cloud and I can create pdf backups as needed.
 
Why not?
If its not an actual requirement to have a log book on a pleasure vessel. Keeping a "log" on an electronic device would be a personal choice.
If the MCA will certify ships to go "paperless" All charts or publications electronic, surly the "log" is also electronic.

The big question will be will the RYA accept your electronic log for your YM:)
 
Uricanejack said:
If the MCA will certify ships to go "paperless" All charts or publications electronic, surly the "log" is also electronic.
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Pretty sure they'd frown on the log being maintained on excel! Too easy to go back and edit to make it say something suitable...

I haven't looked for an MCA guidance document - but stumbled on a Singapore one...

https://www.mpa.gov.sg/web/portal/h...s/detail/c58e94cf-320c-4b65-9e62-1b25e4424a5a

LOTS of requirements... usernames, dual writing, returns to point left off, date and time stamp... Not hard to achieve from a software / hardware perspective ... but not an excel sheet. But as stated previously not applicable to the UK pleasure boater..
 
I find electronic log books total rubbish. When you spill coffee on them the computer goes bang, fizzz, fizzz and all is lost. Personally, I find coffee stains, smudged ink and truly awful hand writing add to the providence of the document if you ever end up in court. I am hoping that the jury won't be offended by my curt entries, 0300 bl00dy cold for June - that sort of stuff (an actual entry).
 
DennisF said:
Thanks all. Sounds like my electronic log will be fine, especially as it is in the cloud and I can create pdf backups as needed.
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Good option is the opencpn logbook plugin - autoinsert various data if hooked up and has crew/maintenance tab. Handy for printing crew lists & boat details should you ever get the places where they like that sort of stuff. Once in while I'll update the paper log with one line entries otherwise it' electronic all the way :cool:

https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/d...ser_manual:plugins:log_data_translate:logbook
 
DennisF said:
By nature, I prefer electronic over paper for diaries etc. I have constructed an Excel workbook to act as a logboook and maintenance log, but a sailing instructor I know says this would not be acceptable to the UK authorities in the event of a MAIB investigation or indeed a court case. Do any of you know the regulations on this? A lot of my journeys are pottering around local rivers and it would be a nonsense to use a ‘2 page per day’ type logbook for this.
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Absolutely no legal requirement to keep logbook on a recreational vessel. So do as you please.
 
We've just replaced our boat after five years and there are three passages recorded in the log book. I have been wondering whether or not to buy a replacement for the new boat - currently tending towards "no".
 
For pottering around UK estuaries, it's entirely up to you. Old paper logs are great memory triggers for reminiscing though.
Foreigners may get a bit more heated about the subject.. if you do decide to keep a paper logbook, don't tear any pages out, it can raise suspicions even in relatively civilised nations such as France.
I had an incident in Norway last autumn, and the local CG kindly emailed me a print-out of my precise movements down their coast for the previous 24 hrs, from their radar surveillance!
 
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